feculent (adjective)
Something that’s feculent (FEK-yuh-lunt) is disgusting, full of fetid, rotting, or putrid matter. As used in The New York Times to describe the play Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus: “Taylor Mac’s filthy, feculent salute to Shakespeare’s Roman tragedy.”
wellspring (noun)
A wellspring (WEL-spring) is a source or supply of anything, especially when it is inexhaustible. As used by Nikos Kazantzakis: “My principal anguish, and the wellspring of all my joys and sorrows, has been the incessant merciless battle between the spirit and the flesh.”
decoct (verb)
To decoct (dih-KAHKT) is to extract the essence of something by boiling it down, concentrating it. As used by William F. Buckley, Jr.: “Norman Mailer decocts matters of the first philosophical magnitude from an examination of his own ordure, and I am not talking about his books.”
10-bagger (noun)
A “10-bagger,” a term coined by Peter Lynch in his book One Up On Wall Street, is an investment that has the potential to return tenfold, if not more. As I used it today: “The coveted ‘10-bagger.’ What investor hasn’t dreamed of that?”
gadabout (noun)
A gadabout (GAD-uh-bout) is a person who frequently travels from place to place, especially for pleasure. As used by Leopold Throckmorton: “Author: A common gadabout who freely wanders over the landscape with wanton disregard. His days are spent picking up all the stray free words he can handle and squirreling them away for later use. Subsequently, (days, months, or years later) working by candlelight and hidden away in his dank, musty secluded lair, the rogue simply rearranges the collected words on yellowed bond with a sharpened quill ink pen fashioned from the tail feather of a bald-headed vulture. Once finished, the dastardly cur audaciously attempts to sell those assembled pages for fleeting fame and profit.”
rutilant (adjective)
Rutilant (ROOT-l-unt) means glowing or glittering with a reddish or golden light. As used by Ben Hecht in Fantazius Mallare: “Standing against the wall and blinking at the rutilant glare of the room, Goliath the dwarf waited nervously.”
volition (noun)
Volition (voh-LIH-shun) is the act of making a conscious, deliberate decision regarding an action that you intend to take. As I used it in my mini-review of Slaughterhouse Five, above: “Ultimately, it’s an ironic statement about the futility of human volition and the absurdity of large-scale human ‘achievements’ such as war.”
gormless (adjective)
Gormless (GAWRM-lis), an informal British term, means stupid, dull, or clumsy; lacking in vitality or intelligence. As used in a column by the journalist Drew Middleton: “‘They’re a poor, gormless lot down there,’ a Belfast building worker said over the bar at the Great Eastern pub.”
mettlesome (adjective)
Mettlesome(MET-l-sum) means spirited, courageous, full of vigor. As used by Eugene P. Lyle in The Missourian: “And being a mettlesome young man into the bargain, he rose by unanimous consent to command a native company of the troop.”
the fantods (noun)
The fantods (FAN-tahds) – a.k.a. the fidgets or the willies – is a state of extreme agitation or restlessness. As used by Mark Twain in Huckleberry Finn: “They was all nice pictures, I reckon, but I didn’t somehow seem to take to them, because… they always give me the fantods.”